FBI Agents Looted Safe Deposit Boxes Of Law-Abiding Citizens, Lawsuit Alleges

The Federal Bureau of Investigation opened the safe deposit boxes of law-abiding citizens who had not been accused of any crime, made copies of personal records and kept personal property and cash, a federal lawsuit alleges.

Now, the FBI and Justice Department of Justice are asking the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to quietly send a class action lawsuit brought by box owners back down to a lower court without ruling on whether the raid and seizures violated the U.S. Constitution.

“The government's actions are shameless, and we hope the court will see through this attempt to sweep a massive constitutional violation under the rug,” said Rob Johnson, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, which brought the lawsuit.

“In March 2021, the FBI raided US Private Vaults, a Beverly Hills safe deposit box company. Even though the warrant authorizing the raid only permitted the FBI to open boxes to identify their owners and safeguard the contents, agents opened hundreds of boxes, ran currency they found in front of drug sniffing dogs, and made copies of peoples' most personal records,” the IJ reports.

The scheme was part of a plan by the FBI to loot property from safe deposit boxes, without so much as even alleging a crime.  

“It later came out that, months before applying for the warrant, the government had already decided to try to permanently keep everything worth more than $5,000 from the boxes, all without charging any box renter with a crime,” the IJ reports.

“Why $5,000? Because $5,000 is the FBI's minimum monetary threshold for forfeitures. In other words, the government testified that it planned to seize and administratively forfeit every box renter's property so long as it thought it would make money on the deal. It planned this despite not knowing who those renters were, what was in their boxes or if they had committed any crimes,” IJ wrote in an earlier statement.

The obviously unconstitutional raid brought a lawsuit by citizens who were essentially robbed at gunpoint by FBI agents.

“On December 7, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit heard IJ's appeal on behalf of customers of US Private Vaults. And their questions showed them to be highly skeptical of the government's actions,” the IJ reports. “Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr., for instance, drew parallels between the FBI's tactics and the abusive searches conducted by British authorities prior to the Revolutionary War. Judge Carlos Bea expressed incredulity at the idea that drug-sniffing dogs could help reunite owners with their property. And Judge Lawrence VanDyke stated that he viewed the case and the government's forfeiture plans as ‘outrageous' and ‘egregious.'”

“With the panel seemingly poised to issue a strong ruling against the government, DOJ attorneys are throwing a Hail Mary to avoid accountability. In a filing last week, the government claimed to understand the panel's ‘serious Fourth Amendment concerns about the inventory search conducted at Private Vaults,'” the IJ reports

“Yet, rather than take its medicine, the government has suggested that the court should instead send the case back down so the district court can silently grant plaintiffs their requested relief and close out the case. IJ is opposing the motion,” the group adds.

An adverse ruling against the government could be a blow to “asset forfeiture,” a scheme that allows law enforcement agencies to seize cash and property from citizens and keep it for themselves, without a conviction or even an allegation of a crime.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.